Error-checking → frameworks → first principles → pure form
Level 1 — Concrete Rule-Checking
- Form: Spotting errors or inconsistencies in simple facts.
- Example: “2 + 2 isn’t 5 — that’s wrong.”
- Grounding: Clear correctness/incorrectness in immediate details.
Level 2 — Step-by-Step Logical Procedures
- Form: Following or refining basic processes.
- Example: “If I put the key in first, then turn it, the engine starts. That’s the sequence.”
- Grounding: Linear reasoning tied to direct tasks.
Level 3 — Internal Consistency Mapping
- Form: Testing whether ideas hold together without contradiction.
- Example: “If free will exists, then absolute determinism cannot — they cancel each other out.”
- Grounding: Logic as a mental balance-checker.
Level 4 — Precision of Definitions
- Form: Sharpening concepts into clear boundaries.
- Example: “Justice isn’t just ‘fairness’ — it’s structured reciprocity within a system.”
- Grounding: Language and ideas are refined into exact categories.
Level 5 — Building Conceptual Frameworks
- Form: Creating an internal model for understanding.
- Example: “I think of the human mind as a layered operating system — hardware, software, interface.”
- Grounding: Self-generated structures, not borrowed.
Level 6 — Systematic Debugging
- Form: Taking apart complex systems to find hidden flaws.
- Example: “This economic argument assumes unlimited growth, but that contradicts resource scarcity.”
- Grounding: Pure error-hunting within complex structures.
Level 7 — Elegant Structural Unity
- Form: Stripping ideas down to the simplest, most universal principle.
- Example: “All geometry is based on the relationship between point, line, and plane — everything else emerges from these.”
- Grounding: Abstraction through reduction to first principles.
Level 8 — Self-Contained Logical Universes
- Form: Entire systems of thought constructed inwardly with perfect internal rules.
- Example: “In this model, if we assume consciousness is fundamental, then matter must be emergent — the logic is airtight within its own frame.”
- Grounding: Logic as a private world-builder.
Level 9 — Pure Form (Highest Abstraction)
- Form: Logic and structure as reality itself, independent of content.
- Example: “Truth is coherence — all existence is structured by self-consistent form.”
- Grounding: Ultimate abstraction — logic as the skeleton of being.
In short:
- Low levels (1–3): correctness, sequence, internal contradictions.
- Middle levels (4–6): definition, frameworks, debugging.
- High levels (7–9): first principles, inner logical worlds, pure form.
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